The Salamander Part 87

She raised herself on his lap, her hands on his shoulders, looking deep into his unseeing eyes, realizing that he would never comprehend her otherwise. All at once she felt a fierce resolve to defend that illusion.

"Garry," she said tensely, "that's what you want me to be, isn't it--just a child!"

"Dodo could never be anything else!" he said joyfully, oblivious of the recording hand of fate, writing on the woman's heart.

"Then that's what I shall always be," she said softly. She relaxed, cuddling her head against his shoulder, repeating in a tired whisper--"Just a child!"

The rest can be written in a sentence.

She became a conventional member of society,--rather extreme in her conservatism.

THE END